


A Patchwork Angel and The Man Who Would Be Cain

by Queertrees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood, Blow Jobs, Dark Castiel, Dark Dean Winchester, M/M, Mark of Cain, Murder Husbands, Season/Series 10, Showers, Stolen Grace, Team Free Will, purgatory acceptance day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queertrees/pseuds/Queertrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel and Dean get together, finally, but Cas's Grace is failing and Dean has a rage-dial on his arm that goes up to 11. Chock-full of good intentions, they pave a brand-new road for themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Patchwork Angel and The Man Who Would Be Cain

_'O see ye not yon narrow road,_  
_So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?_  
_That is the Path of Righteousness,_  
_Though after it but few inquires._

 _'And see ye not yon braid, braid road,_  
_That lies across the lily leven?_  
_That is the Path of Wickedness,_  
_Though some call it the Road to Heaven._  
  
_'And see ye not yon bonny road_  
_That winds about the fernie brae?_  
_That is the Road to fair Elfland,_  
_Where thou and I this night maun gae._  
  
-367. _Thomas the Rhymer._ Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. Anonymous. 17th Cent.

***

Crowley’s face bears that long-suffering, affronted expression he frequently casts at Castiel and the Winchesters. Castiel almost expects some belittling quip to spill from his mouth. But it isn’t words, it’s a thick gurgle of blood that bubbles up. Crowley’s eyes don’t change as his body slumps against Castiel’s blade. Cas’s wrist can’t hold up the weight of it. He lets Crowley slip off his blade, down to the floor, next to Adina’s body.

Hannah gawks at the sight. She crouches down next to Adina. Her fingers hover over the gash in Adina’s throat, where Crowley sliced it open. Right before he forced her Grace down Castiel’s throat.

Castiel’s hands are shaking. It seems to originate deep within his chest. It’s a wired, sour feeling, like he’d felt as a human when he’d gone a few days without food. He feels a familiar warmth spreading through him, stilling the shakes and the screaming emptiness. The warmth has color and taste and sound, and he knows it isn’t his.

Hannah turns her face up to Castiel.

“You let him… you could have killed him before he- he did that- but you _let_ him,” she says.

Castiel feels the warmth seeping into every vertebrae. He stands up straighter. He feels it permeate the tissue of his lungs. He breathes in deeper. He closes his eyes and can hear energy again. He can hear the insects move in the ground beneath their feet. He can feel the grass turning sunlight into sugars and oxygen. He can hear the resolution in his voice as he tells Hannah that it’s over.

“This is not my mission.”

He knows what his mission is, now. He knows it without question. He can hear Hannah’s wings beat between waves of light, and when he opens his eyes, she’s gone.

***

Sam gives the last dose of blood to his brother. Dean’s pulse is weak but present. Sam and Castiel can do nothing but wait for him to wake up.

“So… you’re back? You got your Grace back?” Sam asks after minutes of silence, his voice rasping.

Castiel feels the strength in his arms from where he held Dean. He sees Dean’s rippling, pulsing soul fighting against its acrid stain. Dean’s soul. It is changing.

“Yes, I’m back.” Cas flashes a smile at Sam, reassuring him. Sam’s soul is gleaming. Overpoweringly bright.

Dean lifts his head. The black slithers from his eyes like blood down a drain.

“You look worried, fellas.”

Sam’s soul is joyous, his face relieved. Cas smiles at Sam and helps him undo Dean’s shackles. He smiles at Dean and helps him come slowly to his feet. He lets Dean lean on him while Sam gets a bottle of water. Dean’s soul is undeniably his own.

It is bleached. It is hungry. It has changed.

***

Castiel comes into Dean’s room and shuts the door behind him. Dean asks him the same question Sam did. Castiel nods. Castiel hears Dean’s heart thumping. He feels the Mark on Dean’s arm burning.

Castiel tells Dean the truth he hadn’t told Sam. That his Grace is stolen, force-fed, and temporary. Dean sets his jaw, and sets his mind, and promises that they’ll find a way. He and Sam and Cas, together, they’ll fix it, just like they’d fixed Dean.

“You got that, Cas? You’re gonna be ok. You’re family, and we’re gonna fight for you.” He claps his hand like steel on Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel pushes it off, and the surprise that hits Dean’s face only makes Castiel more sure.

“I love you, Dean.”

Dean’s mouth hangs open. He closes it, and looks away, ready to take an out he thinks he owes. Castiel speaks fast to stop that from happening.

“No, Dean, I mean it. I love you and I will always love you and I want you.” He moves even closer, taking hold of Dean’s jaw so he has to meet his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were dead and lost to me forever. Listen to me. I never want to lose you again.”

He feels Dean’s throat move, swallowing. He feels Dean push towards his hand, not away from it.

“Please don’t lose me again,” Dean whispers, hardly any breath between the lips shaping the words.

Castiel tastes Dean’s lips and mouth and soul. He tastes like tilled earth and the wood of the plough that tilled it. He tastes like iron in a fire. He tastes like salt and flesh and bone. Castiel sinks his Grace into Dean’s soul. Like plunging his hands into an ocean.

Dean pushes his hands into Castiel’s ribs and his tongue into his mouth. Dean pushes with his whole body, leans into Castiel till they twist themselves onto Dean’s bed. They are hot, they are messy, they are alive. Dean’s shirt is pushed up to his neck and Cas’s hands and teeth are all over his chest. His thigh is grinding between Dean’s, and Dean feels drunk and hard and lightheaded and he wants Cas slamming into him, he really fucking does. He’s gasping for air, their breath fast and in time with each other. Dean whimpers, “Fuck me,” as Cas’s hands press Dean’s shoulders into the mattress and his teeth scrape against Dean’s collarbone.

Castiel never feels more like an angel, like a wavelength, as when he fucks Dean. It’s such a human thing, of course, sweat and skin and spit and lust, the hormones and the repetition and the friction and the hair in teeth and the slipping hands. But he finds that the celestial has been within humanity all along. His nails dig into the scar tissue that won’t heal on Dean’s forearm. Dean is so, so warm. He comes into Dean and it is pure. It is light.

Making Dean come is the most important thing, the most necessary thing in the universe. He is more amazed by the way Dean’s thighs shake, by the way Dean’s neck arches back, by the quick and squealing moans, than he was by the first death of a star. He murmurs vows that he will never lose Dean, that he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s safe. His mouth sucks an orgasm out of Dean’s cock with all the animal reverence of prayer. Dean's breath hitches, and he cries out. And Castiel rests, curled between Dean’s legs, his head on Dean’s hip. His left ear is ringing, and he’s exhausted.

Dean gives Cas’s shoulder a small, gentle shake. He looks worried. It’s been hours, and Castiel still doesn’t want to move.

“You ok?”

He kisses Cas haltingly, like he’s expecting Cas to pull away.

“I’m fine,” Castiel says, and for the most part, means it. “I’m here.”

A week later, Cas’s ear is still ringing. He shakes his head, trying to make it stop, and he has to turn his head to hear Sam and Dean speak.

***

Castiel clutches Dean’s jacket, stained with Cain’s blood.

“You shouldn’t have done that, you shouldn’t have done that, Dean,” he repeats, over and over. He got there just after Cain entered the barn where Dean was waiting. Sam caught him, stopped him from going in after them.

Dean drops the First Blade and wraps his arms around Castiel.

“Cas. Cas! It’s ok, I’m still Dean. I’m still me, babe. What’s wrong?”

“And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold,” Castiel says into Dean’s neck. The blood stinks and the smell of it fills Cas’s nose; it’s not just Cain’s, it’s Dean’s too. Dean meets Sam’s eyes over Castiel’s head.

“It’s just a curse, Cas. We can do it. The witch said it’s a curse. Curses can be lifted,” Sam says. Cas pushes himself out of Dean’s arms and rounds on Sam.

“Yes, Sam, it’s a curse. But it’s a curse from _God_. The Maker of All Things. God’s not just some witch, some demon you can outplay.” The rings under Castiel’s eyes are like bruises, and his breath is labored, ragged. He could give in right now, let the Grace slip from his body and expire, but he holds it in place with all his strength.

“There is no getting around God. His agents, sure. But God created all the ways, and all the ways around. This is…” He turns back to Dean, speaks directly to him. “This is it.”

Dean bites his lip, looks down at his boots.

“Sevenfold, huh? Well, I’m not gonna do the math on that right now. But hey, bright side- I’ll be around for when the Impala can get upgraded to a flying car. Can’t argue with that, right Sammy?”

Sam looks like he’s going to be sick.

***

Castiel clings to the doorway, standing at the edge of the room. That’s the only space left. The rest is occupied with the mangled, thoroughly butchered bodies Dean’s finished with. Bad men, one and all. Monsters. All twenty of them. Dean kneels over the last twitching corpse. Castiel can smell the adrenaline seeping from Dean’s pores, can hear his heart rattling furiously, as if it can ever pump enough blood to save Dean.

“Cas…” he says, his voice cracking. What he’d begged of Castiel, only a day before, hangs between them. “Please, Cas…”

_“You’re gonna have to take me out. Promise me you’ll do it, when I’m too far gone.”_

Sam stays behind to burn the bodies. Castiel takes Dean back to their motel. Dean lets him strip the soaked clothes off him, lets Castiel walk him into the bathroom. Castiel runs the shower scorching hot. Scrubs the rough motel washcloth over every inch of Dean’s skin. Kisses the spaces he’s washed clean.

Castiel doesn’t know much about the specifics of Adina’s life, but he knows some things. He knows she had loved, he knows she’d fought. She’d given up her home for the one she loved. He wishes he could have known her better. He feels her Grace within him, as he wraps a towel tight around Dean, and wraps himself tighter around that. He feels the coarse terrycloth rasp against the softest parts of his skin. All of it aches, like the onset of a fever. He pulls Dean closer to him, and Dean lets him. He supposes he does know Adina. He wonders if she would have possibly liked him at all, if she’d known him.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he says softly. He feels Dean’s chest jerk against him, and he rubs circles into the small of Dean’s back and finger-tipped strokes across the nape of his neck.

“I’m not going to spend my last few months alive remembering how you looked when I killed you. I don’t care how many times you ask, I won’t do it. But I will do everything in my God-damned power, for as long as I’ve got, to keep us safe.”

Their air-dried faces and the water dripping off their hair is cold. The lips Castiel lays against Dean’s are nothing but warm.

Castiel, afraid Dean will pack his bags in the night and blink out of his life, watches over Dean as he sleeps. A text lights the room blue.

_doin ok?_

Castiel writes back to Sam that Dean is alive, is asleep, is… as well as he can be.

_what about you_

Castiel squints against the phone’s light. Dean’s shrouded, sleeping body jolts quickly, then slumps in release. Castiel presses the button on the side of the phone that makes it go black. The first second of darkness is like falling into space.

***

They find the angel Metatron in a library in Philly. Hannah’s been able to unify the greater part of Heaven, but some angels are still fighting for secession. They’ve taken on Metatron as their leader, and broken him out of Heaven’s prison.

Sam goes at him first. He’s brutal, businesslike. Castiel’s turn is full of fury and passion. He lacks the strength to kill him, but the anger for what he’s done to Dean makes him wild, makes him feral. He comes out of the dungeon wheezing.

“Some angel you are, Castiel.” Metatron shouts after him.

Sam moves forward to help Cas stand, but Dean holds up his right hand.

“Hold up, Sammy. Cas, come on. This motherfucker’s got one more thing he can do for us.”

Dean goes in, and Cas follows.

The door shuts out Sam. He hears Metatron laughing, baiting the two of them.

And then he hears a scream. The scream they’d wanted to pull from him all day. When it stops, it stops very sudden and very final.

Dean comes out first. Blood up to his elbows. Sam can barely tell where the angel blade stops and Dean’s arm begins. Castiel follows. His eyes are clear, and he walks without stumbling. He slips his hand into Dean’s slick red one. They are both panting, looking at each other like they’d just won a hard fight.

Sam looks beyond them. Metatron’s throat glistens open.

***

Castiel comes out from Dean’s room, doesn’t bother to close the door. Too much quiet behind him. It looks like it physically hurts for him to bring his eyes away from his own hands to look at Sam.

Sam’s face is still bleeding. A lump is growing on his forehead. Castiel’s silence tells him everything. Castiel’s bright red eyes tell him everything. The over-still quiet from the room tells him everything. He still needs to hear it.

“What happened?” he asks, not even trying to keep himself from crying. Castiel brings both hands to cover his mouth, as if they can keep his answer from coming out, from becoming truth.

“I did what I promised him. We lost him.”

Sam sounds like his own sobs of breath are choking him. He falls against the wall. Castiel’s eyes are gaping, frightened, waiting for Sam.

“We’ll give him a hunter’s funeral. Maybe he’ll finally get some fucking rest,” Sam gulps.

Castiel shakes his head.

“The only way I could… the only way the Mark would let me kill him was… completely. There’s no body, Sam. There’s nothing.”

Sam sinks down the wall till he hits the floor.

“Is he in Hell?”

Castiel doesn’t answer this without thinking about it first.

“No. He hadn’t turned into a demon, and it wasn’t an exorcism. He’s not in Hell, but…”

Castiel’s hand flexes, open and shut. It is reaching out for the hand that usually squeezes it back.

“Cas, what am I gonna do?”

Castiel joins Sam on the hallway floor. Sam, beautiful, shining, drops his head on Castiel’s shoulder.

“I think you should find the kids,” Castiel says, a long time later. “Krissy, Josephine, Alex. Find Claire. Teach them. Protect them. They won’t stop hunting, but you can give their lives more than just that. You had Dean. And they need you.”

Sam is sick and dizzy and empty from sorrow. His head pounds from where Dean slammed it into the kitchen table. He nods.

“Are you staying here?” he asks Cas. Cas shakes his head.

“I can’t. Not after- not after this. It would be better for us to part ways.”

Sam sits up, about to offer a protest.

“Sam, can you even stand to see me, knowing what I’ve done?”

“You had no choice. He was too far gone. You promised him.”

Castiel smiles sadly.

“Thank you. But could you really look at me every day, without seeing him?”

Sam tries to hold his gaze. He can’t. He drops his head back down to Cas’s shoulder, wipes snot and blood from his face with the back of his hand.

“Never let me find you, Cas. Please.” Sam asks this of Cas pleadingly, too much like his brother begging Cas to kill him.

“I won’t,” Castiel promises.

By the time the sun breaks over the bunker, it’s empty. Sam goes west in the Impala to Colorado, where they’d last heard from Krissy and Josephine. Castiel goes east in the Continental.

An hour and a half from Lebanon, Castiel pulls into a parking lot. It’s the kind of bar where people go to never come out from. He falls into the furthest, darkest booth, gasping for breath, and pours himself a drink from the bottle on the table.

“Do you know where he’s going?” Dean asks him. Castiel shakes his head, and drains his glass. Dean puts his hand over Cas’s, grips it hard.

“Good.” He pours them both another shot. “If you don’t know, I can never make you tell me.”

Castiel lowers his head onto the table, resting his face on their hands. Dean presses his lips and nose into Cas’s hair.

“Was he ok?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions, Dean. No, of course he wasn’t. But he’s safe now,” Cas says, his voice muffled from being squished into the table. He sits back up and cups Dean’s face with his palm, studying his soul. Runs his thumb over Dean’s cheekbone. “You need a kill.”

“And what about you? You look like shit.”

“So nice. See if I buy you any more drinks.”

But Dean’s right. He can feel the remainder of Metatron’s Grace seeping out of him. Dissolving him like acid on paper. His hand on Dean’s face is less to comfort Dean now, and more to hold on to him for dear life.

“I don’t know how long I have left, but it’s not long.” He feels the cold, sour pit growing inside him. It feels like panic and bile. He thinks of Dean burning his body. He thinks of Dean, alone, and vengeance sevenfold. “I can’t, I can’t leave you.”

Dean turns his face into Castiel’s palm, kisses its lifeline.

“Who’da thought I’d be the one outliving you, huh?” Castiel feels Dean’s jaw grind. “I’m not gonna lose you, babe. We’re gonna do what we gotta do. And I know what we gotta do.”

***

Castiel drops down next to Dean. Pulls his coat over his bare skin like a blanket, and nudges himself under Dean’s arm.

Dean chuckles. “This sure isn’t how I was raised.”

Castiel squirms, nestling closer. He feels the cold at night so much more than he used to, but Dean’s always warm.

“I’m not sure I think too highly of the way either of us were raised.”

“No, I know. But I used to think I was put here to protect people, you know?”

“You were put here to be Michael’s vessel,” Castiel says, frowning, “You were put here to wage the Apocalypse and kill your brother. I was put here to make sure that happened. Fuck what we were put here for. I know you always wanted to save people, Dean. I know.” He stops for some moments, “Mainly I just wanted to save you.”

Dean looks down at Castiel’s face, and the Mark throbs, and his heart aches. He wants to find whoever caused Cas to look so sad, and he wants to devour them, slow and bloody.

“Where’s Sammy?” he asks. Cas’s head raises at the name, and drifts to his confused slant.

“I don’t know.”

Dean presses on, determined to make Cas see his point. “Right. So he’s safe. He’s people we saved.”

The confusion clears from Cas’s face, but he still doesn’t look too convinced.

“And I’m people. And we saved me. And you’re… well…”

“I’m close enough to people, and you save me time and time again,” Cas joins, giving in and grinning and crawling along their stone ledge to drape himself into Dean’s lap.

“Tell me what we are,” Dean demands, kissing Cas’s neck. Cas’s eyes get dark. He pushes Dean down on his back, and ghosts his lips over Dean’s belly. Cas’s hands are freezing, and Dean twitches with a yelp when Cas slides them up the inside of his thigh.

“Tell me,” he says again. His voice is rough, and he can hear Cas’s smile in his reply.

“Abominations,” Castiel hums against the soft skin just below Dean’s hipbone.

Dean takes a deep, full breath of the crisp air. Closes his eyes and grins.

“Abominations,” he echoes, reveling in it. He howls in delight when he comes.

The canyon Hael carved stretches out below them. They will leave tomorrow. They walked through each of its valleys, climbed each of its peaks, counted its stars every night. The Colorado River had roared beside them as Dean sliced the life from an angel, and Castiel had eaten its Grace. That will keep them both going for a long, long time. They draw out the time between kills as long as they can. Till Castiel can barely breathe, or Dean can only see red. It is a kindness, they tell themselves. But it has been many, many years since it bothered them as much as they know it should. They always keep moving. It keeps them off any hunter’s radar. Castiel remembers the promise he’d made to Sam.

Someday, of course, they’ll be found. Someday. Not yet, Castiel reminds himself, shutting his eyes and holding Dean closer. They have time. Sevenfold. Now there is life, and the earth to wander. Someday, the Mark will pass from Dean, and Death will find him. And Castiel will follow. They both know where they’re gonna end up. There is no Heaven, no Hell, not for monsters such as them. Where they will be- where they will be together- like Dean said, it will be pure. 


End file.
